Ernest J. Gaines' novel, In My Father's House

Ernest J. Gaines' novel, In My Father's House, tells the tale of Philip Martin, a minister and civil rights leader, a responsible husband and father, and a pillar of the black community in a small, rural Louisiana town who is forced to confront the sins of his past when the son he abandoned long before shows up in the town to seek revenge against the father he hates. The story is not only about the reckoning of an individual human being with the wreckage of his past, it is just as importantly the story of the division between black fathers and black sons, a theme which is crucial to an understanding of this and other works by Gaines. These aspects of the novel will be explored in the context of the painful beginning of the self-discovery of Martin in the novel.

This novel is unlike many other works by Gaines in that it focuses on a man largely responsible for his own downfall. He is a "victim" of his desire for power, for example, but that desire can be seen as a cultural heritage, a desire merely to seek freedom from powerlessness. Popkin writes of another of Gaines' works: "The result is a people's novel, one revealing unwritten history and depicting the examples of those who, in refusing to accept reality without question, rebelled against it" (Popkin 202). Perhaps Popkin's analysis applies to Martin as well, if we see his sins as a kind of rebellion, however self-destructive, against both the heritage of black oppression and his role as upstanding moral and social

Related Essays

Books on African Americans .... In the novel A Gathering of Old Men, author Ernest J. Gaines tells his story from multiple points of view, presenting eighteen old men who make a stand against .... (4228 17 )

Cajun Cultue in Louisiana .... as their first language, down 90 percent from the comparable figure of 60 years ago (7). In his novel, A Gathering of .... Gaines, Ernest J. A Gathering of Old Men. .... (1715 7 )

not. It is important to note here that Gaines' novel is effective in part precisely because it eschews outright social criticism of the white community or of racism in ideological terms. As Major writes, Whether or not one chooses to believe that a novelist should try to solve social problems through his work, there simply is no evidence that social propaganda has ever helped anybody toward a larger or deeper vision and sense of life (Major 58). This "larger or deeper vision and sense of life" includes a focus on family and community and the connection to them that Martin seemed to enjoy, although his doom awaited him in the person of his long abandoned son. Martin corrupted that connection with his personal weaknesses, but the novel is, in effect, an affirmation of that connection rather than a condemnation of the man. The novel is a warning to those who would hide their weaknesses from and betray their family and community, and who will ultimately have their day of reckoning. Not only does the community accept him as their moral and religious leader despite his flaws, they are pressing him to serve as their political standard-bearer as well. When one of the people in the audience suggests that the freedom to vote, whic

Category: Literature - E